Creative Awakening Coloring Journal by Deborah Koff-Chapin

Summary 
Current Price: £11.99
Number of Pages: 80 
Size: 28 x 21cm 
Paper colour: White 
Paper surface: Smooth  
Paper thickness: Very Good  
Linework: --  
Perforated: Yes  
One sided: Yes 
Binding: Glue  
Drawings go into the spine: No
Waterbased pen bleed: None

Here's a pretty 'out there' book for you to have a look at today! Deborah Koff-Chapin is the founder of the Centre for 'Touch Drawing'; an artistic process whereby you place plain paper onto paint or ink, then move your fingers over the top of the paper to create a design. This deeply immersive and personal style of art is done completely by touch with no extraneous objects like a paintbrush or pencil- just your fingertips. 

Touch Drawing is used as a spiritual healing tool by therapists, social workers and educators to allow free-flowing expression using the sense of touch. Deborah can explain it much better than I, so feel free to have a look at this introduction to Touch Drawing by the lady herself.

Creative Awakening is one of 5 colouring journals that Deborah has created, each one full of her own Touch Drawing artwork for you to colour and meditate over. The adjacent page is ruled for you to write down your thoughts on the art. Here is a selection pages from the book so you know what to expect.

Obviously, this style of art is quite niche and isn't going to be for everyone. The lines are bold with dark, heavy shading and I'm not sure I would personally market it as a colouring book- more an artistic journal that you can render in all kinds of materials but which works just as well left monochrome. I totally get the aim of this art; to make you ponder, interpret, decipher, discover what feelings and emotions it evokes in you. I would love to try and create some Touch Drawings as I think it would be far more therapeutic to me than colouring these images.

The book is A4 in size with a card cover and thick, white paper that doesn't bleed with waterbased markers. Each page is perforated for removal, which is ideal as I think these types of images are perfect for framing as a talking point. I coloured mine with pastels, as I wanted to have that feeling of using my fingers instinctively, just like Deborah did when she was creating it. 

I'd be really interested in hearing your views on this type of art- let me know on the Facebook page or in the comments below.

This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review. You can find it on Amazon here:

Creative Awakening: Soul Touch Colorig Journal